Using Primocache with Winbtrfs RAID0

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Byolock
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Using Primocache with Winbtrfs RAID0

Post by Byolock »

Im trying to get rid of my hardware raid controller and had bad experiences with the windows raid function, so i tried winbtrfs ( https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs ) which has a raid implementation on its own.
After setting up the raid i tried primocache on it. It doesn't find the raid volume, only the raw disks, but i thought as primocache works on block level it probably still works, so i set up a caching task for both disks including defer write. The strange thing now is that it seems to be working fine on one of the hard drives, i can see less to no activity on this drive and defered blocks, cached read and so on staticts in primocache rise. For the other drive though primocache doesn't detect any reads or writes and therefore does not "intercept" any of those.

I understand that this is a rare scenario but maybe someone has an idea what i could try as a workaround or romex devs will take a quick look to see if this would be an easy fix.
InquiringMind
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Re: Using Primocache with Winbtrfs RAID0

Post by InquiringMind »

Welcome to the forums Byolock,

Could you post a screenshot showing the PrimoCache volume selection screen? The entries listed there could provide useful information.

Also, what RAID level are you using? If you're running RAID-1 (mirroring) then reads and writes will only go to one drive (with the Winbtrfs RAID driver copying them to the other) so the results you report with PrimoCache are to be expected. In the case of RAID-0 (striping) then the driver would be handling the split of data - driver disk access isn't always picked up by PrimoCache, e.g. Drive Snapshot (a disk imaging program) traffic isn't detected by PrimoCache (which is actually a good thing). In this case, it could be that the primary drive is handled by the filesystem (and picked up by PrimoCache) with secondary drive(s) handled by the Winbtrfs driver. You could test this by rebuilding the RAID array in reverse order and seeing if PrimoCache then picks up traffic on the other drive.

Out of curiosity, which RAID controller are you hoping to dispose of and why?
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Re: Using Primocache with Winbtrfs RAID0

Post by Support »

Officially we only test and support Windows native file systems. In addition to what InquiringMind asked for, you may also upload a screenshot of your Windows Disk Management showing disks of the raid, for our reference.
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